Note: To make something clear, I am not ‘quitting writing’ or ‘giving up’! That is not what my blog below (posted yesterday) was about and I should have made that a little more clear. I have simply decided not to go the agent route unless by some miraculous stroke of luck one approaches me, then that’s different (but we know that won’t happen!). I’m just saying that the whole agent process is just not for me.
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OK, so I received my last agent rejection today. I say it’s my last because I can’t put myself through this ‘process’ anymore. I have gotten 20 rejections and 11 ‘no responses’, which is the same as saying I’ve had 31 rejections. Of those, I only had 3 agents who requested more, only to reject anyway. I still have 4 out that I haven’t heard back from, but only queried them about 2 weeks ago. However, I should probably just add them to the list too and get it over with.
And that’s OK.
The thing is, I used to love writing with everything in me. Other than my kids, writing was my life, my world. I remember how the very thought of it would excite me so much. I would write at work when I was supposed to be working (7 years at a desk at a construction company), I would jot down notes on anything readily available when I didn’t have my note pad on me (napkins, junk mail, post-it notes, my jeans, my hands). I have a large file cabinet packed full of tablets, single sheets of paper, readily available stuff. I’ve been creating stories since I was a child and writing them down since I was about 14. Funny, those stories I started writing when I was a teenager I never thought about publishing. I never sat back and dreamed about being some famous author, pumping out books like Stephen King, or being rich, or being on some ‘Best Selling’ list somewhere – I didn’t even know that such lists existed (and I was better off).
It was only when I was about half-way through my vampire novel (recently titled Hallowed after many, many years) that I truly thought about what it would be like to have it published. Why? It wasn’t technically my idea, to try and get published. Someone, who I will not name because I don’t want them to feel I’m blaming them (that’s ludicrous!) mentioned to me after telling him/her about the story and after they read a sample, that I should try. I have to say, that was the moment when two things happened to me. #1…my mindset changed. I started picturing my name on a book in Books-A-Million. I started dreaming about what it would be like to have ‘readers’ and I loved the idea of writing stories that other people loved. #2…Realizing more every year that went by what it takes to get published slowly turned writing into a chore.
It slowly but inevitably broke me down. I got to the unfathomable point where I dreaded writing the next chapter in this or that story, when I stressed over the technicalities so much that I started hating myself for still putting myself through it. But I never gave up. I pushed myself for many years, telling myself I wanted this, that I was born to do it, that I was meant to write.
And you know what? I was born to write and I was meant to be a writer. I do not deny that fact, nor will I ever deny it. What I do deny now is that I was ever meant to become a published author.
The whole agent process, quite frankly, is bullshit. Now don’t get the wrong idea as I do understand fully that it’s a ’subjective business’ and that it’s kind of like fishing. I fully understand that agents have to sift through hundreds of queries. But I really think that agents should be a little more genuine and honest than so many of them are. These are people’s dreams you’re screwing with, people’s emotions and feelings, but I don’t think many of them care much. The number of form letters that I received was disheartening, not to mention, sickening. What’s worse is that some of the agents I queried, it stated on their sites they ‘understand what the writer is going through and they will give a reason why for their rejection’, but did they? No. Form letter. And every form letter I received pretty much sounded exactly the same as the one before it. Originality anyone? Is there some site out there that has free downloads of agent rejection form letters like there are resume’ templates? Why am I saying this? Why am I risking making myself look bad in public by doing the ‘forbidden’ and ’speaking my mind’? Because I think agents need to know. Just a little honesty can go a long way and if they took that into consideration, maybe so many spirits wouldn’t be broken. Whether it’s good honesty or bad honesty, it’s still something more than a few template words you toss at people to get them out of your way. To be blunt, I would rather not be represented by any agent that doesn’t care about people. Especially like one I got that simply said: ‘Not for me, but thank you.’ No ‘Dear Jessica’, not even a complete sentence. I’m glad she declined… :-S
The last agent I received a rejection from today, I have to say was the only agent out of 31…THIRTY-ONE…that said something that seemed original and was encouraging. It is comments like his that help writers grow and continue to believe in themselves. And it is agents like him that, I believe, deserve the most from their careers because I think agents like that care about people and their dreams and that is far more important than caring more about how much money a writer might be able to make for you.
This ’subjective’ business is not for me and so I’m going home. I’m going back to my writing roots when I did it because I loved it and I wasn’t worried about impressing someone else ‘higher up’. I’m not ‘quitting’. I’m not one of those bitter people who think agents suck and don’t know what they are talking about (they know far more about the business than I do). I simply want to write and love it again, and in the end that’s all that matters to me. I may end up being one writer with fifty or so completed novels never published, but at least I will have enjoyed writing them.
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